


poisonous

by Marenke



Series: the quaren-fics [11]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Camp Nanowrimo, F/M, Poisoning, Pre-Relationship, fuck it harry befriends some old ladies and he does crossfit, god i fucking hate ilvermony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23439631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marenke/pseuds/Marenke
Summary: Harry grabbed a vial from the little black market stand, swishing the green liquid inside, staining its insides.
Relationships: Daphne Greengrass/Harry Potter
Series: the quaren-fics [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1896019
Comments: 2
Kudos: 68





	1. Chapter 1

Harry grabbed a vial from the little black market stand, swishing the green liquid inside, staining its insides.

"That's arsenic, and not _quite_ what you're looking for." Daphne said, her words with a light American accent, black eyes rising from the book she was reading. She pointed at a vial with a purple-ish liquid, thick and congealed like blood, barely moving. "Try that one."

Harry put the arsenic back in place, and grabbed the vial she had pointed to. The liquid didn't even budge inside the bottle.

"Sprinkle a little on your morning juice, and by noon you'll be dead." She continued, eyes focused back on the book. "By sundown, though, you'll escape. Three days later, sure, but an escape. I hope your coffin has an exit hatch."

In times of war, escaping was essential. Daphne Greengrass, a student of Slytherin, filled in the market gap by selling poisons for a more accessible price. Some people bought poison to kill someone else; some, like Harry, were just looking for a way out of the war unscathed.

For him, it was simply that the more he fought, the more he was fought _against_ ; the more Harry tried to help people, the more people bit the hand feeding them, and he was _tired_. So he learned of the little black market, found himself an opening to go there (it was timed down to the second so that no customer met another; _your privacy guaranteed or your money back!_ was her motto) and was now perusing the selection like it was just another day at the grocery store, checking the quality of vegetables.

"I'll take it, then. A sprinkle, then?" Handing her a few Galleons - which made her raise an eyebrow; it came to no surprise to Harry, since he was way overpaying her for his peace of mind -, Daphne simply nodded, accepting the coins. "Thanks for your service."

She laughed, a sardonic sound that implied she did it not because of the goodness of her heart.

"I'm getting paid, and that's all that matters. Now shoo with you, the two am meeting is going to happen soon." She made a vague wave at him, and Harry left with a slightly lighter pocket.

* * *

Harry couldn't bring himself to just sprinkle poison on his food and not be noticed by Hermione, so the next morning, Harry braved the sun and woke up early, even if he had slept a little less than three hours, tossing and turning in bed over the poison he had bought. Soon enough he'd sleep for a good while.

But maybe he had woken up too early - the doors of the Great Hall were closed, and he looked at them, astonished.

"It only opens at _five_ , Potter." Daphne's voice said, taking her eyes off the book she was reading - a different one, Harry couldn't help but notice. He looked at her, half-hidden away in a little corner by the door, and she looked at him. " _What_? I just finished business. Might as well catch some breakfast before going to bed."

"No, nothing, just… Surprised you'd talk to me, that's all." He did a quick time spell, verifying that there was still some time before five. He approached her corner, and she scooted over, making space.

"I wasn't raised in a barn, unlike some people." Daphne sniffed, closing her book and sticking it inside her robe pockets, which jingled with coins. She blushed a little, which was sort of cute.

"No, you've been raised with poison makers." She shrugged. "Might I ask if you don't feel, you know, bad about it? You are technically killing everyone."

"Technically." Daphne pointed out, and Harry nodded. She rested her back against the wall, her black hair bunching up against her skull, eyes looking away. "I mean, I'm not forcing them to drink it, or to have it drunk. I'm just the seller. They could all buy it, and then simply not use it."

She then looked at Harry, scanning him for a moment.

"Same could be said about you, though. At sundown, everyone will see you fall." Harry couldn't retort, and stayed quiet; she took it as an opportunity to keep speaking. "I do wonder why you do this. I know, I know, a good businessman doesn't ask their customer's secrets, but you're… _Well_."

"Yeah, Boy Who Lived, Chosen One, all those titles." Harry passed a hand through his hair, feeling it coarse, as if the blood that coated his hands (not literally, but if felt like it. How many good people had died because of him?) had gone to his hair. "It gets heavy after a while, and I'm tired of seeing people die because of me. Tired of having to fight a war I was forcibly stuck in. I just want to be… Well, simply Harry. Not _Potter_ , or any other thing. Just Harry."

She nodded, eyeing him up and down for a moment. Her legs went up, against her chest, and she hugged them, as if trying to bring herself some measure of comfort.

Maybe she was just like him, tired of being - well, whatever _she_ was. Harry couldn't say he knew the Greengrass girl too well, other than the fact she sold poisons. Perhaps she, too, had a too heavy life of her own.

"Just Harry, huh?" Daphne asked, and smiled, closing her eyes. "Sounds nice to be just yourself."

"Which is why I'm doing this." Harry nodded, more to himself, grabbing the little vial on his pocket. It felt warm against his palm, a comfortable weight that told him it all would soon be over. "Maybe I'll get to see the beach. Maybe I'll become an hermit. Maybe I'll just travel the world. Who knows?"

"Who knows." She echoed, eyes still closed, and Harry let her be.

* * *

When the doors to the Great Hall opened, they were still the only souls there. Daphne ignored the social convention of eating at her own House table, and joined Harry on Gryffindor's table, grabbing some toast and butter to herself.

"Just a sprinkle, remember." Daphne said, barely raising her eyes from her task as Harry grabbed the vial. "More than that and you'll die suffocated inside that coffin."

He nodded, uncorking the little flask, and letting the smallest drop fall into his pumpkin juice. The beverage went from a healthy orange to a murky brown, and Harry raised an eyebrow at that.

Well, it wasn't going to be his problem soon enough. He took a deep breath and drank it all in one go, the taste of the pumpkin juice barely masking the poison's bitterness.

Harry drank two more cups of juice to get rid of the last dregs of brown, and when he rose his eyes, Daphne was watching him, cat-like and quiet.

"You know, Harry, if we ever meet outside this, I hope you'll be my friend." She smiled, malice showing in it as clear as the rising sun. "You are a most interesting creature."

Harry didn't feel any different. Maybe the poison was not one with apparent side effects? He didn't know much.

"Thanks?" It was as much of a question as it was not. Daphne did not say anything, simply rising up and leaving.

* * *

Harry felt a scalating pain on his stomach at around sundown, and let out a small moan. Hermione, by his side, rose an eyebrow - and Ron screamed when Harry started to cough up blood, falling freely through his mouth in a cascade.

Then, mercifully, before the pain got any worse, he passed out.

* * *

"Merlin, you're a heavy sleeper." Daphne's voice said, one nail painfully stabbing his cheek. Harry opened his eyes, and the world slowly came into focus.

He was in a sparsely decorated room, the smell of the sea thick on his ears, the noise of crashing waves a loud rumble in the background. He was laying in a soft bed, covered in a thick blanket.

"Huh?" He sat up, and Daphne, by his side in a chair that dwarfed her, cocked her head. She wasn't in school robes, shapeless and black, but in a thick wool sweater and pants, dressed like a Muggle. "What?"

"Welcome to the world of living, Harry." She said, putting her hands on her lap. "It was a fun job."

"You… What?" Harry had expected to wake up in a coffin, not in a bed. "How am I here?"

"My family deals in poisons and funerals. It's really lucrative to do both!" She chirped, smiling like death wasn't the subject. Daphne handed Harry his glasses, and he put them on, confused. "So, instead of letting you fend for yourself to get out of the coffin - you had a really amazing funeral, pity you couldn't see it-, I did a little breaking and entering, some illegal spells here and there, and got you here."

"And where is, exactly, _here_ …?"

"Oh, California."

"Cali - _what_?" Harry had never been so far from home. Or Hogwarts. Or, well, in any other continent: the Dursleys always left him home when they traveled. So to go to sleep in Scotland and wake up in America was… Something else, surely.

Daphne handwaved it all away, though, like it wasn't more than a small detail.

"Yeah, I figured you'd like somewhere where people don't know you." She shrugged, leaning back on her too big chair. "And this place is perfect! Sure, it's my house so of course I think it's perfect."

Okay, Harry's life was already weird, so this was the lesser concern. He was in a girl's house, that she owned at age _sixteen_ , in another continent. This was fine. Really. It wasn't even the weirdest thing he'd ever found out.

Shit, maybe the poison business was really lucrative.

"Shouldn't you be at Hogwarts?" He asked, instead, slowly getting out of bed, feeling like… Well, feeling like he hadn't moved in three days. Going to the window, Harry could see it was a clear morning on the coast, with people already on the beach. He opened the window, and the breeze made him feel made of light.

"Oh, about that. I got expelled." Whipping his head around so fast Harry felt the bones creaking in protest. "Yeah, Dumbledore apparently knew of my little black market, didn't do anything until you died, and expelled me even though he didn't have any proof that I had been the one to poison you."

Well.

"No one came forward?" He asked, sitting on the windowsill. The sun was warm on his back, and Harry was glad for it.

Daphne snorted, crossing her arms, giving Harry a very pointed eyeroll.

"Half of my customers are dead and the other half killed their parents. Who would come forward? Who's going to go to Dumbledore and say, 'hey, actually, because I bought a poison from the daughter of known poison makers, I can for certain say she'd never lose profit in something such as poisoning someone herself'? Come on, that's not realistic."

Neither was the fact he was in California, but hey.

"So, how did you manage to, you know, not be arrested?" There were birds doing awful noises in the beach. It was lovely. Harry had never been so thankful for birds, stretching himself carefully, trying to not fall outside. It would be a shame to fake his death just to _actually_ die.

"By fleeing the country, of course. I did come back to grab your body, though, and a few of your things. They're in the closet." Daphne paused. "You're free to go, by the way. I can even get you some money and fake documents if you need. I may be fleeing the British law because I supposedly murdered you, but you aren't."

"I think I'll hang out around here for a while, actually. I've never been somewhere so sunny." He smiled at her, and he could see her cheeks go red. Maybe it was the sun. Maybe…?

"Really? Then may we remain good friends, Harry."

"And if I don't want to remain friends? What if I want more?"

Daphne laughed, this time without any of the malice from before. It sounded almost sincere.

"Why, then we see where we'll go from there, you cheeky bastard." Rising from her seat, Daphne grabbed her book. "I'm going to grab breakfast. You have fifteen minutes to join me before I leave."

He nodded, and got off his seat as she closed the door behind her, leaving Harry in his room. The walls were bare, and there was no decoration other than some simple platitudes he could've found in any other guest room, but if he stayed around, he might decorate it to his tastes.

Perhaps he could even convince Daphne of joining him in a shopping spree, if he was fast enough. Nodding, mostly to himself than anything else, he went to the closet, finding his Muggle clothes neatly folded, and a bag of Galleons by their side.

Well, it was a beginning. Harry could barely wait to start his life - by Daphne's side, too, if she'd allow it.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry and Daphne got some fake papers and new wands, mostly because they weren't sure if the tracker worked outside of England, and it surprised Harry at how different it was from what he'd known in his home country.

For starters, the entire wizarding population did not go to a single school - sure, there was a Hogwarts-like school called Ilvermorny half a country away, but there were also several little schools they could choose from, including one close enough to Daphne's apartment that they didn't even have to live in the dorms. It was an… Interesting enough school, sure. Mostly because the students didn't have an uniform, houses, or any sense of unity. Cool stuff, really.

But then, again, did Hogwarts ever have a sense of unity other than that one brief time during the Triwizard Tournament, when everyone banded together after Cedric because they thought Harry was cheating? No, not really. Therefore, he preferred the local school simply for the convenience of not having to share a room with strangers again.

And the best part was that, aside from the changed wand, Harry barely had to change his name! He just said he was Harry Evans, and Daphne went by Daphne Green, and no one knew who they were.

During lunch, when the school let them out to go buy food for themselves or eat in the dingy cafeteria, Daphne took him to eat pizza and explained the why.

"British wizards are too isolated to, you know, matter in the grand scheme of things." She said, her new wand behind her ear like it was nothing. No one even seemed to notice it was something magical. "Voldemort hadn't made the news here when he started his conquest, and when he died, it was sort of a footnote, but of ridicule. I mean, is a Dark Lord one at all if a _baby_ can kill him?"

She snorted at that, and Harry had to concede.

"So I'm not famous?"

"You're barely known. It's like, everyone knows there was a baby in the equation, but American press never released the name." Daphne snorted again, and Harry took the moment to bite into his too-greasy pizza slice. It was good, but in a bad way. "Probably they would claim that it was an American baby or something and Dumbledore must've blocked it, I don't know. But no, no one knows who Harry Potter is."

"So we changed names to avoid being found out by… Tourists? Wouldn't they know what I look like?" Harry pointed out, and Daphne shrugged.

"What, like you're the only sixteen-year-old with black hair and green eyes around these parts? Don't flatter yourself, Harry." She looked at the clock on her wrist, hissing as she rose from her seat, one hand going to her school bag. "Okay, grab that and let's go, or we're going to be late for class!"

Harry nodded, grabbed his bag with one hand and the remaining slice of pizza with the other, and started to run back to the school building - it looked like any other school when you knew the secret to it, but he assumed onlookers (if not spelled to look away by a Notice-Me-Not) found it weird to see a bunch of teens going to hang out at an abandoned, derelict church. Or not, who knew.

* * *

In the mornings, Harry had taken to running, when light had barely broken the darkness of the night. There weren't any visible stars, not like Hogwarts, mostly because of the light pollution, but that was fine.

At the beginning, he had been alone, and midway meeting a group of old women, hair as grey as a rain cloud, who walked every day from one side of the pier to the other. Or, at least, Harry felt like that was what they were doing: when he passed by them on his way to go, they were going; when he passed them to come back to the apartment, they were still going.

After a while, they took to saying _hi_ to him as he passed, and wished him a nice day as he went back. Harry did the same out of politeness. They were nice to him, so Harry was nice to them, even though he half-expected them to be all sort of like aunt Petunia, craned necks and gossiping. He didn't expect aunt Petunia to care about his death, were he honest.

(unbeknown to him, aunt Petunia mourned the death of her sister's only son, cursed the wizarding world for taking yet another part of her family so young and not allowing her to visit his grave again)

At some point, he started walking with them, and when he was free from school-related duties, he went to their houses and fixed whatever little problems they had. For payment, it varied: from baked goods to money and even weed, once. Mrs. White had winked at him and told Harry to not spill the beans, and he pocketed it.

Next day, he auctioned it off on his school, and he and Daphne used the extra money to get themselves the best pizza they could buy.

It tasted exactly like the shitty, cheap pizza.

* * *

Perhaps the reason Harry enjoyed waking up early and running was because when he got home, Daphne was sitting on the breakfast table, slowly chewing blackened toast while still clearly half-asleep. Harry would grab her a cup of coffee and put it on the chipped mug they got on a secondhand store, and she'd mumble something that was half "thanks" and half some random syllables.

When he came back from the bath, she seemed more human, awake and already with her nose buried in a book, dressed for school in her worst, most grunge clothes. She looked like one of the goths hanging out under bridges, though. He supposed it was the black hair. After his bath, he'd eat breakfast while she read, commenting on her book as she went, and they'd go to school.

It had been a morning like any other when Harry found her not buried in a book, sitting prim and proper, wand behind one ear and a pencil on another, going through the slew of Arithmancy problems that was an exam revision.

"Did you do number five?" She asked, and Harry couldn't help but notice the bite marks around the pencil's eraser. Harry sat down on the table, and she pushed towards him a bowl of cereal. "Here. Not much milk, right?"

"Yeah, thanks. Also, the answer is..." He grabbed a spoon, mindlessly repeating the answer of the homework as Daphne took notes, nodding along to it.

Getting caught up in the years of Arithmancy he hadn't done had been hellish, but now he enjoyed the subject. At least it was better than Runes, or History. Those he was just plain awful, and no amount of tutoring could aid Harry.

"Thanks." Daphne said, back to biting her pencil in-between scratching on the soft paper. "You're not so bad."

"Wow, just took you what, three months of daily life together?" He quipped, and she smiled. If it made his heart race faster on his ribcage, no one needed to know.

"Don't take me for granted, Harry." She said, and then focused back on her paper. "Do you know how to solve number six?"

He did. Bringing his chair closer to hers, Harry leaned over the work and helped Daphne finish it.

* * *

During summer, Daphne and Harry go to New York for fun. They stayed in a terrible hotel and ate even more terrible takeout and sneaked inside theaters to watch musicals and plays. Harry missed his Invisibility Cape, but Daphne said he hadn't been buried with it; Harry presumed Dumbledore took it back from him. A shame, really. Daphne just said sneaking in made it more fun, and Harry went with the flow.

They were pouring over the Broadway guide, trying to decide what to watch today as they walked through the streets when they heard a shrill scream. Usually, both would've ignored it - it was New York, people screamed all the time, hadn't the voice been familiar.

"Harry!" Hermione called, clearly braving through the too-thick crowd to find the two. Frozen in place, Harry and Daphne exchanged a look. A whole conversation passed between their eyes, and the conclusion was the same: their daily life would not be interrupted by things such as "going back to England to fight some sort of war". Harry hadn't been keeping up with the news outside of America, lately.

"You grab her and go somewhere private, I Obliviate her." Daphne said, plain, and Harry, who had literally faked his death for some sense of normalcy, nodded in agreement.

Daphne disappeared in the crowd, and Harry turned, looking at Hermione with an expression he hoped was shocked as he pocketed the Broadway guide.

Hermione grabbed his arms, like she couldn't believe he was real. Harry blinked, confused, hoping that his months with Daphne had taught him some sort of acting skills.

Probably not.

"Harry! Oh, Merlin, you're alive!"

No, no he wasn't. Harry Potter was dead and buried.

"I'm sorry. Do I know you?" Harry could fake an American accent pretty well at this point, egged on by his school friends - who, in turn, could do a pretty hilarious British accent.

"Don't - don't joke with me, Harry!" She said, with tears in her eyes, and he cocked his head. This was an oddly pleasurable fun. Maybe he had lived with Daphne too much.

"No, I'm not. I don't know who you are." He paused, once more, and smiled at her. Hermione sniffled, loudly. "But you seem upset. Do you want to have coffee somewhere until you're calm?"

Harry saw her fingering the place her wand holster was, and pretended he did not see it. What she planned, he wondered? Deciding to not let Hermione have him back, he gently grabbed her by the elbow, taking her off the main street into one that wasn't as crowded, which was kind of hard.

Harry felt the Notice-Me-Not spell before Hermione, used to the feeling of Daphne's magic, and smiled at the air. Hermione stopped, glancing at him.

She opened her mouth, and Daphne jumped out of her dark corner, wand in hand. Hermione looked around in a panic, not seemingly noticing that no one was paying attention, and then glared at Daphne.

"Greengrass! I knew you had something to do with this. Let me take back Harry, and I won't tell Dumbledore what you really did." Harry took off his wand from its holster, keeping it aimed at Hermione carefully. "And put your wand back in place, we're in the middle of the Muggle world!"

"I don't really give a shit where we are, idiot." She hissed, weaving the spell into the last syllable of her phrase. Hermione went still, and with a gesture of her head, Harry helped manhandle Hermione into a small alley.

Did he feel bad, watching Daphne take off memories from Hermione's head with a weirdly practiced maneuver? A little. Did the relief outweigh feeling bad? By a lot. Harry simply watched as Daphne let the white, glowing fluid fall down the drain, holding a stiff Hermione in her arms.

When it was over, Daphne gently set Hermione straight, planted some memories of getting lost, and sent her on her way, all but kicking her out of the alleyway. Then, with a heavy sigh, she rested her back against a wall that looked covered in grease.

"Merlin be damned, they're planning on asking for help from the MACUSA to fight Voldemort." A wry smile took her face. "I wish I was a fly on the wall to see her getting laughed out of there, though."

Harry blinked and took the guide out of his pocket. He really didn't care about England anymore.

"Yeah, sounds laughable. Now, what should we watch?" He asked, opening the book again, and Daphne's eyes shone in the low light, approaching and leaning over the book, close enough to Harry feel the heat of her body.

It was familiar. Comfortable.

"We could see Cats."

"On principle, no."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i fucking hate ilvermony


	3. Chapter 3

Hermione finished her speech on the floor of the Congress, an auditorium with too many chairs, the oppressive air choking the last few words out of Hermione, and she looked around the faces of the unfriendly congressmen, all bathed in shadows. She had to suppress a shudder as whispering started to ring around her ears. She saw some of them leaning in to speak with the people taking notes, rifling through papers as they, glancing at her for a moment, talked with each other, then went to talk with their fellow congressmen.

Hermione never had been one for public speeches, but they were desperate. The situation back home...

The congressman for Texas - a burly old man, all dressed in a white cowboy outfit, with a too big top hat - leaned in, showing his face to her. He looked like a stereotypical cowboy from an old movie.

“Why?” He asked, and Hermione cocked her head, confused. She had thought her speech had been well delivered. “I mean, no offense, young lady. Impressive speech, truly a pinnacle of despair. But why should we offer help?”

Hermione opened her mouth, then closed. Yes, the war wasn’t going well; ever since Harry died (there was a dull pain to her head; Hermione ignored it), the Dark Lord had been doing things more and more openly, taking control of the Ministry without even a second thought as soon as the newspapers with news of Harry’s death arrived in the houses. The Ministry had fallen so easily, Hermione had been surprised it had ever stood for so long. Then, came the battle of Hogwarts, flurrying in from the inside - and Hermione felt stupid for doubting Harry: he had been right to say that Malfoy had been planning something. Dumbledore had fallen so easily, killed by Snape.

The funeral had never happened. The Death Eaters paraded his corpse around. Harry's corpse had never been found; his grave had been protected with a Fidelius only Dumbledore knew, a false name written on it to protect him.

The people, with the fall of Harry and Dumbledore, had seemingly lost hope, and allowed Voldemort to do whatever he damn pleased, like they had been the only reason to fight back; even the Order had fallen, scattered through the wind like nothing had ever happened. The Order, at this point, was what little remained of Dumbledore’s Army. 

It didn’t help that the bulk of the Army, the Muggleborns, were leaving in droves. Sure, not by magical means: airplanes and trains and other things the Dark Lord, for now, refused to touch. Last Hermione had heard, they were all either going to Ilvermorny, or Beauxbatons, or one of the smaller schools that existed in the countryside of other European countries.

Hermione stayed behind, though. She holed herself up in Grimmauld Place, evading the Death Eaters trying to capture her, burnt the old portraits while they weren’t there to avoid her location being known, and had locked Kreacher in a room to die. She had found, in the Black Library, a way to redo the Fidelius, had set herself as the secret keeper, and told only to those she trusted, a number that dwindled every day.

There wasn’t much she could do. Going to America was a last-minute bet, hoping for the impossible, for relief, for people to fight. Besides, Hermione had done her research: there was a treaty that said that, if America was to go to war, then England would help, and the contrary was true. So, maybe, if she pulled that card, she could have help on the task of killing the Dark Lord.

She explained her thought process to the congressman, and he leaned back, snickering for a moment, hands on his fat belly, a face of a man deep in thought, before he smiled with too many teeth.

“God bless your innocent heart.” Hermione blinked slowly. The man leaned on his table, elbows on it to prop one hand on his face, the other lazily stroking his wand. “You’re too young to remember the 1828 war. Back then, we asked for England’s help, based on this very same treaty that you claim. Back then, you denied us help, and we lost more wizards than we would have, had your country helped us.”

He cocked his head, and Hermione shook hers; no, all research she did would’ve told her of this. Wouldn’t it? The books, they -

“And besides, it’s not like France is useless.” Guffawed another senator, a plump woman from Rhode Island, if her placard was any indication. “The moment he tries to set foot on there, the Legionnaires will probably tear him apart. It’ll be quite the spectacle.”

She smiled, too cruel, and Hermione wanted to give a step back. She hadn’t even thought of France - she’d seen the Beauxbatons students, and hadn’t been impressed. But what if…?

“Interesting how you never bothered them, and went straight to us. It says something, don’t you think?” Said Rhode Island, leaning to stage-whisper to the man by her side, from Louisiana. “Perhaps the so-called International Confederation aren’t so much allies than, say, holding each other back from progressing.”

A congressman from snickered.

“That’s just England, I say. You preferred to stay in the dark than go forward.” Hermione bit her tongue to not speak - if she did, it would be to send her a curse, screaming profanities as she went down. 

The congressman from Louisiana, pressing his lips together, gave Hermione a disapproving glance, filled with something akin to boredom.

“Were it me, I would use this failure of a trip to see if you could get a spot in one of our schools and forget about England. Let them cannibalize themselves.” He said, softly. Rising up from his seat, he took from his pocket a thin, white wand, sending a long strip of light to the ceiling, which burst into small stars, falling softly into the ground, disintegrating midway, before it even reached Hermione. “Session dismissed.”

* * *

Hermione left the floor of the Congress and went for their library, marching there as if her feet were on fire and stomping was the only way to put it out. She may have elbowed Texas on her way out. Maybe not. 

Sure, they hadn’t learned much of history in school - to put it kindly -, but it couldn’t be right. They couldn’t be the cause of such contempt. Right?

Someone stopped Hermione on the way to the library, putting a hand on her shoulder. She half-wished it was Ron, but Ron had left with his family to Liechtenstein.

Instead, looking back, she found a meek girl, rat-faced and with too-thick glasses. She looked familiar, and Hermione tried to pinpoint where she could’ve seen her.

“Sorry. Hermione Granger, right?” She asked, voice soft. Hermione looked at her. “I’m Lisa, junior delegate from Louisiana. Mr. Fontenot asked me to help you.”

Oh, that made some sort of sense. Perhaps she was here to expel Hermione form the Congress’ building, and she didn't plan on going down without a fight. 

“I don’t need help.” Hermione chided, and Lisa shook her head. Both of them knew it was a lie; if Hermione didn’t need help, she wouldn’t be in America, would she?

“You’re going to the library, right?” Lisa smiled to Hermione, who shook her head. “You can’t enter without someone giving you permission. I’m here to help. Also, the library is a mess right now, we’re moving it, so the books are disorganized. I know, I know. Bad timing and all that.”

Hermione clenched her jaw, but allowed Lisa to guide her.

* * *

It took her a few hours to read on the shared history of America and England, and Hermione was with half a mind of exorcising Binns. The other half of her mind was to finding out how to bring Dumbledore back to life so she could personally kill him.

Lisa, sitting by her side and quietly redoing the notes she took during the session, glanced at her. Her face must’ve been red hot, because that’s how she felt about it, seething with anger.

“How - why?” She asked at no one in particular, and Lisa set her notes aside, sticking her pencil behind her ear, hands clasped together.

“That’s something we see in you, British wizards. They keep you soft and pliable. Dumb, almost childish. Depending on someone else to survive. Don’t you, as a group, have a will to live on your own?” Lisa paused, putting a hand to her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry. I spoke too much.”

She didn’t seem sorry; in fact, she was doing a terrible job of hiding her smile. Were all Americans like this? Rude? Insufferable?

“Merlin, I can’t believe it. My History professor was a ghost the headmaster refused to exorcise. He only taught about goblin rebellions.” Hermione waved at the pile of books in front of her, books Hogwarts didn’t carry; Hermione, who practically lived in that library, would know. “And you’re telling me that we have learned nothing that mattered in the grand scheme of things?”

Lisa nodded, pushing her glasses back. 

“Well, yes. Goblin rebellions are hyper specific to area, country, motivations, and so on. Everyone has had goblin rebellions, they aren't special.” Lisa sneered at it, and then smiled, hands in her lap. Prim, proper. “You know, the New Orleans school is pretty good, but maybe I am biased. I mean, you could go to Ilvermorny, which is kinda like your Hogwarts, but…”

Hermione sighed, head in her hands. She was tired.

“I’m going to skip on Hogwarts for a while, I think.” If the others had the right to quit, so did she. Besides, it was like the Rhode Island congresswoman had said: the French would massacre the Dark Lord. 

At least, she hoped so. Hermione washed her hands of the situation. She had tried.

* * *

Harry sneezed. Daphne, by his side, reading the Chinese food menu, looked up, worry written in her black eyes.

"Don't tell me you got a flu during the summer, Harry." She said, taking off her flannel and putting around his shoulders. Daphne wasn't bigger than him, and he knew that the buttons would pop off if he tried to close it, so he didn’t.

There was a warmth to in, and her smell got to his brain, even through the thick fog of spices, wafting from the surrounding plates to Harry’s nose. She was wearing shorts and a tank top, and Harry looked away, now that so much of her skin wasn't covered.

"No, I'm fine. Thanks for caring, though." He replied, and Daphne put her hand atop of his. He smiled at it. "Anyway, I think that we should definitely get spring rolls."

Daphne grinned. Even in the low lightening of the shop she looked beautiful. Maybe one day he'd tell her his feelings, but that day wasn't today.

"And pork fried rice? Maybe some noodles? We can take the extra to our room and binge-watch late night television while eating it."

There was a genuine smile to Harry’s face; was this happiness? He liked to think it was.

"You read my mind. Definitely."


End file.
